


peace of mind (piece of me)

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode: s03e12 The Inside Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 06:30:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6318352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma tries to smooth over some rough edges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	peace of mind (piece of me)

“Fitz!” Jemma says slightly more sternly than she means. Creel jolts at the sound of her voice, but his arm remains stable - especially good since she’s in the middle of a blood draw.

“What?” Fitz asks, rushing forward. Up to now he’s been parked at the end of her lab bench, doing nothing but glaring at Creel while she attempts to work. The intensity of it puts her in mind of the way he watched Ward during that disastrous Arctic mission last year.

She puts a smile on her face and forces her tone to lighten. “Shouldn’t you be helping Mack with the installation of that new sonic canon?”

Fitz’s mouth drops open at the suggestion and he sputters a moment before asking, “A-are you sure? I mean-” He gestures to Creel as if that says everything.

She tips her head his way with a smile she can only hope isn’t dimmed by her annoyance. “I can handle a simple blood draw,” she says, knowing full well that wasn’t his meaning at all. “Honestly, I know they make you uncomfortable.” She waves her hand dismissively. “Go. We’ll be just fine.”

It takes a moment more, but soon enough Fitz’s footsteps echo across the floor and she hears the door open and shut. She sighs in relief.

“Wow,” Creel says.

“He’s just a little overprotective,” Jemma says as she readies another vial - she’ll need several samples for her work on a potential vaccine. “They all are after my little misadventure last year. And besides, Mack really does need his help. The sonic canon is terribly sensitive.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She looks up while her fingers work away and finds Creel staring at her oddly. There’s none of the bared teeth he had during their first interview; he looks younger when he’s not being unnecessarily threatening.

“You’re not-” he hesitates and looks younger still with the way his mouth twists around his next words- “mad?” he finishes finally.

Now it’s her turn to give a start. “Why would I be mad? Your deception was wholly in pursuit of rescuing Talbot’s son. There’s nothing to be angry about.”

He rolls his eyes as if to disagree - which, yes, is understandable given Hunter’s very vocal complaints about Creel’s behavior. “I mean about before. I killed two agents.” He looks away as if expecting one of the others to be giving him a death glare from beyond the lab’s windows.

Jemma’s hands still and she steps back slightly to better regard him. She knew, of course. The others have made no end of complaints about it since his arrival and there’s no doubt in her mind that’s what had Fitz hovering when he had better things to do.

She was rather hoping Creel had remained ignorant to it though.

“That wasn’t your fault,” she says, firmly and clearly because she needs him to understand this. “You were brainwashed.”

He’s staring at her, utterly flummoxed, so she reaches out to rest her gloved hand over his bare arm. Now he stares at it and she half expects him to turn to latex under her touch but he doesn’t.

“You were as much a victim as they were,” she says more gently. “You didn’t kill them. Someone else did - whoever robbed you of your free will and whoever ordered you to do it - but _not you_.”

She likely wouldn’t be saying these things if she’d known Hartley and Idaho or even been present when Creel was the enemy the team was facing, but she wasn’t. She was away, gaining new perspective.

She resumes her work with a shuddering breath. “The others- they’re good people, but they’re often less than sympathetic to brainwashed individuals. I think it makes it easier to fight them - as one must - if they don’t think of them as victims.”

She thinks that might be the end of it - her little non-apology on behalf of her teammates might just do what she hopes and ease Creel’s conscience - but after a long moment he speaks again.

“But you do.”

She raises an eyebrow in his direction.

“You think of us as- as victims.” The word twists into something ugly in his mouth and she’s sorry suddenly for her choice of words.

There’s nothing for it now though but to soldier on. “I was undercover inside HYDRA,” she says softly as she removes the needle from his arm and replaces it with a ball of cotton and some medical tape. She has all the samples she could want for now - though she expects to call him back for more at a later date. “I saw people-” She closes her eyes, remembering watching as her own words stripped Donnie of his free will.

She hurries to pack up her samples for storage, hoping to leave the memory far behind.

“And there’s always the trouble,” she continues, her voice growing louder to reach him as she moves about the lab, “that any agent of HYDRA might be brainwashed. I mean, likely I’m _not_ and even if I were, everyone who would have known is long dead, but it’s a worry.”

She laughs a little at her own silliness. Of _course_ she was never brainwashed. It’s foolish to even consider. And yet …

The refrigerator closes slowly beneath her hand and her eyes are not truly on it when she speaks again, her voice falsely light. “I even made a machine to test whether a person is free of control - which is pointless in my case as it only works if you’ve been activated - but-” His wavering reflection appears in the glass beside hers and she turns on the spot, feeling suddenly a bit crowded by his impressive size. He’s wearing only a tank-top, which she’s thought odd as the Playground always strikes her as rather chilly, and for some reason being so close to him with only that thin fabric between them makes it difficult for her to breathe.

“You-” it comes out as a croak and he swallows it down. “You have a machine?” he asks, this time sounding much smaller than he appears.

She smiles. “I can pull it out of storage - if you’d like?”

He nods, a little shell-shocked. “That would be…”

“No trouble at all,” she says kindly and makes to move past him. And perhaps she moves wrong or he’s simply seen her nonsensical thoughts about his clothing choices in her face because the next moment she feels his lips against hers.

She freezes, her entire body going stiff as her mind struggles to make sense of this. Just as it’s reaching her brain that _this_ \- whatever it is - is _good_ , he pulls away.

“Sorry.” He steps back, leaving her feeling unsteady despite there having been no time at all in their short kiss for her to lean against him.

She feels almost lonely in the respectful space he’s left around her and is torn between leaning back against the refrigerator and stepping closer to him.

He twists a finger at his head. “Sometimes I- uh, I get ideas and when I second-guess them, I worry it’s the brainwashing so I follow through before- hopefully I won’t do that anymore after you hook me up to your machine.”

There’s a question in there. He’s worried he’s bollocksed it all up and she’s going to rescind her offer. Which is … so silly.

She ducks her head to hide her smile as she moves past him. “Well,” she says, “as eager as I am for your peace of mind, that would be terribly disappointing.”

She’s returned to her lab bench by the time he makes sense of that and she gets to see his expression light up. Yes, she does like him much better when he’s not being threatening.

“You and Talbot are here all day, correct?” she asks.

He’s still smiling. It’s adorable. “We fly out at 1800.”

“Then come back after lunch?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“And I’ll make certain Fitz is occupied so we’ll have some privacy.” She means it to spare him from the others’ staring, but his smile grows at the unintended implications. After a moment’s hesitation, hers does as well.

 


End file.
